Red Rising(76)

“You’re staying,” I say. “I need you here.”

“Is that an order?” he asks.

“Yes,” Sevro says.

Cassius stares at me. “You giving me orders?” he says in a strange way. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten that I go where I want.”

“So you’ll leave control to Antonia while we both go risk our necks?” I ask.

Quinn’s hand tightens on his forearm. She thinks I don’t notice. Cassius looks back at her and smiles. “Of course, Reaper. Of course I’ll stay here. Just as you’ve suggested.”


Sevro and I make camp in the southern highlands within view of the Greatwoods. We do not light a fire. Our scouts and others roam these hills at night. I see two horses on a far hill, silhouetted against the setting sun behind the bubbleroof. The way the sun catches on the roof makes sunsets of purples and reds and pinks; it reminds me of the streets in Yorkton as seen from the sky. Then it is gone and Sevro and I sit in darkness.

Sevro thinks this is a stupid game.

“Then why do you play it?” I ask.

“How was I to know what it’d be like? Think I got a pamphlet? Did you get a slagging pamphlet?” he asks irritably. He’s picking his teeth with a bone. “Stupid.”

Yet he seemed to know on the shuttle what the Passage was. I tell him that.

“I didn’t.”

“And you seem to have every gory skill required for this school.”

“So? If your mother was good in bed, you suppose she’s a Pink? Everyone adapts.”

“Lovely,” I mutter.

He tells me to cut to the point of it.

“You snuck into the keep and stole our standard and buried it. Saving it. And then you managed to steal Minerva’s piece. Yet you don’t get a single bar of merit for Primus. Doesn’t strike you as odd?”

“No.”

“Be serious.”

“What should I say? I’ve never been liked.” He shrugs. “I wasn’t born pretty and tall like you and your buttboy, Cassius. I had to fight for what I want. That doesn’t make me likeable. Just makes me a nasty little Goblin.”

I tell him what I’ve heard. He was the last one drafted. Fitchner didn’t want him, but the Drafters insisted. Sevro watches me in the dark. He doesn’t speak.

“You were picked because you were the smallest boy. The weakest looking. Terrible scores and so small. They drafted you like they drafted all the other lowDrafts, because you’d be easy to kill in the Passage. A sacrificial lamb for someone they had plans for, big plans. You killed Priam, Sevro. That’s why they won’t let you be Primus. Am I on target?”

“You’re on target. I killed him like I’d kill a pretty dog. Quick. Easy.” He spits the bone onto the ground. “And you killed Julian. Am I on target?”

We never speak of the Passage again.

In the morning, we leave the highlands behind for the foothills. Trees intersperse with grass. We move at a gallop in case Minerva’s warbands are near. I see one in the distance as we reach the trees. They didn’t see us. Far to the south, the sky is smoke. Crows gather there where the Jackal roams.

I would like to say more to Sevro, ask about his life. But his gaze penetrates too deep. I don’t want him to ask about me, to see through me as easily as I saw through Titus. It is strange. This boy likes me. He insults me, but he likes me. Even stranger, I desperately want him to like me. Why? I think it is because I feel as though he is the only one, including Roque and Cassius, who understands life. He is ugly in a world where he should be beautiful, and because of his deficiencies, he was chosen to die. He, in many ways, is no better than a Red.

I want to tell him I’m a Red. Some part of me thinks he is too. And some other part of me thinks he’ll respect me more if he knows I am a Red. I was not born privileged. I am like him. But I guard my tongue; there’s no doubt the Proctors watch us.

Quietus does not like the woods. At first the shrubbery is so thick that we must cut our way forward with our swords. But soon the shrubbery thins and we enter the realm of godTrees. Little else can exist here. The colossuses block the light, their roots stretching up like tentacles to sap the energy from the soil as they grow tall as buildings. I am in a city again, one where animals bustle and tree trunks instead of metal and concrete obstruct my view. Then, as we venture deeper into the woods, I’m reminded of my mine—dark and cramped beneath the boughs, as though there is no sky or sun.

Autumn leaves the size of my chest crinkle underfoot. I know we are being watched. Sevro does not like this. He wants to slink away to find the eyes at our backs.

“That would defeat the purpose,” I tell him.

“That would defeat the purpose,” he mocks.

We break for a lunch of pillaged olives and goat meat. The eyes in the trees think I’m too stupid to shift my paradigm, as though I would never suppose they’d hide above me instead of on the ground. Yet I don’t look up. No need to frighten the idiots or let them know I know their game; I’ll have to conquer them soon, if I still am the leader of my House. I wonder if they have ropes to traverse the trees. Or are the limbs wide enough?

Sevro still itches to pull out his knives and scale one of the trees. I shouldn’t have brought him. He’s not meant for diplomacy.

At last someone chooses to speak at me.